Monsanto Charged with Chemical Poisoning

It’s not every day that we learn about a victory for Mother Earth.  But thanks to a 47-year old farmer and a French court there has been a victory against U.S. biotechnology giant Monsanto.

Paul Francois, a French farmer sued Monsanto after he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches, and stammering after inhaling the company’s Lasso weedkiller in 2004.  He cited insufficient product label warnings as part of the problem.
“It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning,” François Lafforgue, Paul Francois’s lawyer said in an interview with Reuters.  In the same interview, Monsanto’s lawyer Jean-Philippe Delsart states:  “Monsanto always considered that there were not sufficient elements to establish a causal relationship between Paul Francois’s symptoms and a potential poisoning.”

But the court in Lyon, in southeast France disagreed.  It clearly saw the cause of Francois’ health problems as linked to Monsanto’s pesticide use and subsequently ordered an expert assessment to determine Francois’ financial losses and awarded him accordingly.

Monsanto’s pesticides are not just used in food production but are also sprayed on school playgrounds, private lawns, railway lines, urban pavement, golf courses, community roadsides and public land.